1. Field of the Invention
Many years ago Weber Marking Systems, Inc., the assignee of the present application, and its predecessors pioneered in the development of utilizing a removably attached stencil over the address portion of a multileaved invoice form whereby one typing of the customer's name and address completed the addressing of the invoice and the making of a stencil used to address the packages comprising the shipment. This one typing eliminated the error of having goods shipped to one address and sending the invoice to a different address. Weber Marking Systems, Inc. has experimented with many types of adhesives in their removable attachment of stencils to plural leaved invoice forms. Both the adhesives and the stencils contained oils and with the passage of time these oils tended to "bleed" and contributed to a staining of the invoice forms. Weber Marking Systems, Inc. discovered that by using a pressure sensitive adhesive tape to hold the stencil to the paper form there was a minimum of oil bleed onto the paper form. A novel tabbing machine was developed and this is disclosed in Weber Marking Systems, Inc. U.S. Pat. No. 3,052,284.
However, there were and are drawbacks to the tabber utilizing a separate tape to attach the stencil to the forms to be addressed. Shelf life of such stencil tabbed forms is relatively short and hence the forms with stencils tabbed thereto cannot be made up in advance of their intended use. Also, stencils having a pressure sensitive adhesive tape at one end thereof makes such a stencil roll special. And still further such special stencil rolls are bulky at the one end and not the other making it difficult to make uniformly wound rolls.
The present invention aids in overcoming some of the inadequacies of the existing tabbing system with tape adhered stencils. The adhesive utilized is preferably a non-oily wax which securely holds a stencil without smearing or causing oil bleedout to the form to which the stencil is attached. The stencils may be of standard construction without the use of bulky tape. And, effective shelf life of these wax held stencils is considerably longer than those heretofore used.
The present invention is concerned with a machine for tabbing a stencil to a continuous strip of plural leaved business forms which are incrementally indexed through the machine. A liquid adhesive such as a microcrystalline wax is deposited in a desired pattern at a particular location on the plural leaved business forms at a first station on the machine. The machine utilizes an adhesive applicator which is moved upwardly and downwardly in synchronism with the indexing of the business forms and when the applicator is in a down, form engaging position, it acts to deposit the adhesive on the forms. The adhesive applicator is adjustably positioned over the area of the first station on the machine so that it may deposit adhesive at any location on the business form. The machine is capable of having the adhesive repetitively deposited in the same location on each form as it passes the first station in the machine. Subsequently a stencil, without any tape or other adhesive, is delivered over the plural leaved business forms at a second station on the machine and thereupon placed onto the previously laid adhesive to cause the stencil to be attached to the business form. The stencil delivery mechanism may be similarly adjusted at the second station and the stencil deposited at the same location on the form where the adhesive was previously deposited. The machine thus delivers stencil tabbed business forms in a continuous strip. The use of wax as the adhesive permits the subsequent stripping of the stencil from the form.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A preliminary patent search was made on the subject liquid application and the following prior U.S. Pat. Nos. were found: Talarico 3,344,767; Lockwood 3,348,520; Maniaci 3,642,556; Schweitzer 3,768,439; Baker et al. 3,811,405; Carlyle 3,818,924.
Most of the above listed prior patents show and describe mechanisms for dispensing adhesives or other liquids in various patterns. Some of these patented devices employ valved trap chambers to dispense uniform amounts of liquid on each ejection. Still further some of these prior patented devices also employ heating chambers to melt the liquids before they are dispensed.
All of these prior patents fail to disclose the principles of applicant's invention as disclosed herein.